The sixth Code4Lib North meeting will be on June 4--5, 2015 at the St. Catharines Public Library, 54 Church St., St. Catharines, Ontario. St. Catharines is on the Niagara Peninsula on the south side of Lake Ontario, close to the American cities of Buffalo and Rochester in New York. See the wiki page for details and to sign up for a talk.

Code4Lib seeks to provide a welcoming, fun, and safe community and
conference experience as well as an ongoing community for everyone. We do not
tolerate harassment in any form. Discriminatory language and imagery
(including sexual) is not appropriate for any event venue, including talks,
or any community channel such as the chatroom or mailing list.

If you are being harassed, notice that someone else is being harassed,
or have any other concerns, and you feel comfortable speaking with
the offender, please inform the offender that he/she/ze has affected you
negatively. Oftentimes, the offending behavior is unintentional, and the
accidental offender and offended will resolve the incident by having
that initial discussion.

Code4Lib recognizes that there are many reasons speaking directly to
the offender may not be workable for you (including but not limited to
unfamiliarity with the conference or its participants, lack of spoons,
and concerns for personal safety). If you don't feel comfortable
speaking directly with the offender for any reason, skip straight to
step 2.

Escalation

If the offender insists that he/she/ze did not offend, if offender is
actively harassing you, or if direct engagement is not a good option
for you at this time, then you will need a third party to step in.

If you are at a conference or other event, find an event organizer or
staff person, who should be listed on the wiki.
If you can't find an event organizer, there will be other staff
available to help if the situation calls for immediate action.

If you are in the #code4lib IRC, the zoia command to list people
designated as channel helpers is @helpers. At most times, there is at least one helper in the channel.

For the listserv, you have a free-for-all for public messages; however,
the listserv does have a maintainer, Eric Lease Morgan.

Wider community response to Incident:

If the incident doesn't pass the first step (discussion reveals offense
was unintentional, apologies said, public note or community is informed
of resolution), then there's not much the community can do at this point
since the incident was resolved without outside intervention.

If incident results in corrective action, the community should support
the decision made by the Help in Step 2 if they choose corrective action,
like ending a talk early or banning from the listserv, as well as
support those harmed by the incident, either publicly or privately
(whatever individuals are comfortable with).

If the Help in Step 2 run into issues implementing the CoC, then the
Help should come to the community with these issues and the community
should revise the CoC as they see fit.

In Real Life people will have opinions about how the CoC is enforced.
People will argue that a particular decision was unfair, and others will
say that it didn't go far enough. We can't stop people having
opinions, but what we could do is have constructive discussions
that lead to something tangible (affirmation of decision, change in CoC,
modify decision, etc,).

Sanctions

Participants asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply
immediately. If a participant engages in harassing behavior, organizers may
take any action they deem appropriate, including warning the offender,
expulsion from the Code4Lib event, or banning the offender from a chatroom
or mailing list.

Specific sanctions may include but are not limited to:

warning the harasser to cease their behavior and that any further reports
will result in other sanctions

requiring that the harasser avoid any interaction with, and physical
proximity to, their victim for the remainder of the event

early termination of a talk that violates the policy

not publishing the video or slides of a talk that violated the policy

not allowing a speaker who violated the policy to give (further) talks at
the event

immediately ending any event volunteer responsibilities and privileges the
harasser holds requiring that the harasser not volunteer for future Code4lib
events (either indefinitely or for a certain time period)

requiring that the harasser immediately leave the event and not return

banning the harasser from future events (either indefinitely or for a
certain time period)

publishing an account of the harassment

Code4Lib event organizers can be identified by their name badges, and will
help participants contact hotel/venue security or local law enforcement,
provide escorts, or otherwise assist those experiencing harassment to feel
safe for the duration of the event. Code4Lib IRC volunteers can be identified
by issuing the @helpers command to the #code4lib bot named "zoia".

The Code4Lib Scholarship Committee will award 5 diversity scholarships based on merit and need. Each scholarship will provide up to $1,000 to cover travel costs and conference fees for a qualified attendee to attend the 2015 Code4Lib Conference, which will be held in Portland, Oregon, from February 9 - 12, 2015.

Applications are due by December 31, 2014 at 5 PM EST (see below for more details).

DIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIP ELIGIBILITY, CRITERIA, AND REQUIREMENTS

To qualify for a scholarship, an applicant must be interested in actively contributing to the mission and goals of the Code4Lib Conference.

Two scholarships will be awarded to any woman or transgender person.

Two scholarships will be awarded to any person of Hispanic or Latino, Black or African-American, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, or American Indian or Alaskan Native descent.

One scholarship will be awarded to the best remaining candidate who
meets any of the previously mentioned eligibility requirements.

Eligible applicants may apply based on multiple criteria, but no applicant will receive more than one scholarship. Past winners of any Code4Lib scholarship are not eligible for a scholarship.

The scholarship recipients will be selected based upon their merit and financial needs.

Registration spots are being held for scholarship recipients. If you can attend only if you receive a scholarship, there is no need to register for the conference at this point. Scholarship recipients will receive a special link for free registration, or will be reimbursed if they have already registered.

Scholarship recipients are required to write and submit a brief trip report to the Code4Lib 2015 Scholarships Committee by April 1, 2015 to be posted to the Code4Lib wiki. The report should address: (a) what kind of experience they had at the conference, (b) what they have learned, (c) what suggestions they have for future attendees and conference organizers.

All reimbursement forms and receipts must be received by May 26, 2015.

HOW TO APPLY

To apply, please send an email to Francis Kayiwa (francis.kayiwa_at_gmail.com) with the subject heading Code4Lib 2015 Diversity Scholarship Application containing the following (combined into a single attached PDF, if possible):

A brief letter of interest, which:

Identifies your eligibility for a diversity scholarship

Describes your interest in the conference and how you intend to
participate

We would like to thank our sponsors for supporting the Code4Lib 2015 Diversity Scholarships. All sponsors have left it up to the discretion of the Code4Lib 2015 Scholarship Committee for how to award these diversity scholarships.

You will need to log in with your code4lib.org account in order to vote. If you have any issues with your account, please contact Ryan Wick at ryanwick@gmail.com.

Voting will end on Tuesday, November 25, 2014 at 11:59:59 PM PT (GMT-8).

The top 10 proposals are guaranteed a slot at the conference. The Program Committee will curate the remainder of the program in an effort to ensure diversity in program content and presenters. Community votes will still weigh heavily in these decisions.

The final list of presentations will be announced in early- to mid-December.

All nominees have been contacted and the 19 (!) nominees included in this election are all potentially available to speak. The top two available vote recipients will be invited to be our keynote speakers this year. Voting will end on Tuesday, November 18th, 2014 at 20:00:00 PM PDT.

When rating nominees, please consider whether they are likely to be an
excellent contributor in each the following areas:

1) Appropriateness. Is this speaker likely to convey information that is useful to many members of our community?
2) Uniqueness. Is this speaker likely to cover themes that may not commonly appear in the rest of the program?
3) Contribution to diversity. Will this person bring something rare, notable, or unique to our community, through unusual experience or background?

Code4Lib 2015 is a loosely-structured conference that provides people working at the intersection of libraries/archives/museums/cultural heritage and technology with a chance to share ideas, be inspired, and forge collaborations. For more information about the Code4Lib community, please visit http://code4lib.org/about/.

The conference will be held at the Portland Hilton & Executive Tower in Portland, Oregon, from February 9-12, 2015.

Proposals for Prepared Talks:

We encourage everyone to propose a talk.

Prepared talks are 20 minutes (including setup and questions), and should focus on one or more of the following areas:

Projects you've worked on which incorporate innovative implementation of existing technologies and/or development of new software

Tools and technologies – How to get the most out of existing tools, standards and protocols (and ideas on how to make them better)

Technical issues - Big issues in library technology that should be addressed or better understood

Relevant non-technical issues – Concerns of interest to the Code4Lib community which are not strictly technical in nature, e.g. collaboration, diversity, organizational challenges, etc.

To Propose a Talk

Log in to the Code4Lib wiki and edit the Prepared Talk wiki page using the prescribed format. If you are not already registered, follow the instructions to do so.

Provide a title and brief (500 words or fewer) description of your proposed talk.

If you so choose, you may also indicate when, if ever, you have presented at a prior Code4Lib conference. This information is completely optional, but it may assist voters in opening the conference to new presenters.

As in past years, the Code4Lib community will vote on proposals that they would like to see included in the program. The top 10 proposals are guaranteed a slot at the conference. The Program Committee will curate the remainder of the program in an effort to ensure diversity in program content and presenters. Community votes will, of course, still weigh heavily in these decisions.

Presenters whose proposals are selected for inclusion in the program will be guaranteed an opportunity to register for the conference. The standard conference registration fee will still apply.

Proposals can be submitted through Friday, November 7, 2014 at 5pm PST (GMT−8). Voting will start on November 11, 2014 and continue through November 25, 2014. The URL to submit votes will be announced on the Code4Lib website and mailing list and will require an active code4lib.org account to participate.

The final list of presentations will be announced in early- to mid-December.

Sarah Simpkin, GIS and Geography Librarian & Catherine McGoveran, Government Information Librarian (both from UOttawa Library) - will team up to present on a recent UOttawa sponsored Open Data Hackfest as well as to introduce you to Open Data Ottawa.